Ellen’s Oscar Selfie Earns $3 Million for Charities

The Academy Award selfie shared around the world, which broke several Twitter records with its 3 million retweets, including President Barack Obama’s previous record, now has earned three million dollars for charity.

Host Ellen DeGeneres prominently used a Samsung phone to create the photo live on the air, at the same time as Samsung was an Academy Awards sponsor.

Although the company denied in a statement that it had any knowledge ahead of time regarding Ellen’s successful stunt using its phone, Samsung earned millions of dollars worth of priceless product placement as a result.

The company has decided to pay the free publicity forward.

“In honor of this epic moment and of course, the incredible response of nearly 3 million retweets, we wanted to make a donation to Ellen’s charities of choice — St. Jude Children’s Hospital and the Humane Society of the United States — by donating $1.5 million to each charity.”